I've always envied Accordance users and the multitude of Semitic texts available to them! Now, that I too am an Accordance user I thought I might as well make an attempt at running a few queries. I welcome an suggestions and corrections as I start learning to make efficient use of Accordance.

It's commonly known that the Shalshelet (accent/cantillation mark) occurs only four times in the Pentateuch/Torah. This is something also confirmed by popular literature on the subject:

1.Cantors Marshall Portnoy and Josee Wolf, The Art of Torah Cantillation pg. 612.James D. Price,Concordance of the Hebrew accents in the Hebrew Bible: Volume 1 pg 6.3.Joshua R. Jacobson, Chanting the Hebrew Bible pg. 107-108 (Out, of his list of seven occurrences of the Shalshelet four are from the Pentateuch)

Since, I already know how many times the Shalshelet should appear in the Pentateuch I thought this would be a great search to start with. So, here is my attempt:

Opened, Accordance

Selected the BHS-W4

Limited the Search range to the “Law” or the Pentateuch using the button bar above the text window.

Click on “Window” heading on the menu bar at the top of the screen. A drop down window opened.

Then selected “Character Palette” from the drop down window(Or the 5th choice from the top).

In the character palette window I then selected the Yehudit (font)

made sure that there was a check mark next to the “cantillation” option.

Then, on the command line I entered: A wildcard period(.) followed by Shalshelet (I used the character palette to select it)

Finally, I Hit enter

Sure, enough Accordance brought back all four verses in the Torah/Pentateuch which contain the Shalshelet. That was great! Now, I know what people mean when they say Accordance is intuitive! I was able to run this query basically without typing any codes in, and with only an elementary knowledge of Accordance.

Now, I am wondering if there is a way to distinguish between searches on the Shalshelet Gedolah and Shalshelet Ketanah?

First, welcome to Accordance! We're quite glad you are finding it as intuitive as its reputation states. Now, I'm no Hebrew expert, so I can't answer your question directly, but I can hopefully provide some insight and at least help you get a bit more familiar with Accordance.

For your entry to the shalshelet character, as you moused over the character, you would have noticed that it told you the key combination was Shift-Option-1, so for any future searches of that, just type period (.) and shift-option-1, to put the search right in. Similarly, you can always use the key combination to pull up the Character palette (Command-Option-4 on Accordance 10, I think it is something else on Accordance 9) faster than using the menu.

As to your final request, I unfortunately don't know the difference between a Shalshelet Gedolah and Shalshelet Ketanah. Someone more knowledgable about Hebrew more be able to help, or if you describe the difference to me, I may be able to figure out how to search for them in Accordance.

Thank you for you short cut (tips), those are indeed a lot fast than going to through the menus!

Shalshelet: A rare initial level-two disjunctive accent.
A 'Shalshelet' is an accent that has a 'Paseq' immediately following the word the shalshelet was placed on. And the Shalshelet is always/usually on the first word of the verse.

For many a Shalshelet is simply a Shalshelet, but others make a distinction between the:
Shalshelet Gedolah- disjunctive accent and the
Shalshelet Ketanah-a conjunctive accent
I think much of the distinction is mainly between if is found in the Prose books or the Poetic books. Therefore, I could simply limit my search to the prose or to the poetic books.

Accordance appears to make a distinction because when I mouse over the accent in the character palette is calls it a Shalshelet Ketanah, which is why I was wondering. But, being that the Shalshelet is rare and I know where all the Shalshelet(s) are located this isn't a major concern I was just curious. But, thank you for your quick response.

Now, I am wondering is it is possible to do accent searches(in combination) using the construct search window in Accordance? I haven't been able to enter accent marks in any of the drag and drop boxes, yet.

Well, again, I can't help you too much on the specific characteristics of the Shalshelet, but I hope some other intrepid users can chime in. What I can tell you is that you can enter specific overstrike characters using the CHAR construct item. Once you drag the item in, as the dialog will tell you, you can type a space or two first so that you can see the accent character in the box.

What I can tell you is that you can enter specific overstrike characters using the CHAR construct item. Once you drag the item in, as the dialog will tell you, you can type a space or two first so that you can see the accent character in the box.

This is brilliant! This is exactly what I wanted to do.

I used the Character palette to tell me what key combination I need to use to type the overstrike characters into each of the CHAR. boxes. Then I set the construct search up and was able to search for 'Geresh' followed by a "Rebia" with in one word of each other using the WITHIN box. 240 hits. I now see I could add other vowels with wildcards, or any word with a specific accent, too.